


Red Line

by kelex



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 13:25:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelex/pseuds/kelex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel can't let go of responsibility.  Spoilers for "Thor's Hammer" and "The Torment of Tantalus"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Line

"42."

"What?" Daniel was hunched over Ernest's log book, while a television monitor showed a video loop of the floating elements. "42 what?"

Jack came into the lab. "Meaning-of-life stuff. The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. 42."

"Jack, I'm working." Implied? _I don't have time for your childish antics._ He tossed his glasses impatiently on the desk, and dragged his hands through his hair.

"We still can't dial up Ernest's planet. Carter thinks its worth waiting another month; that--"

"Yeah, that's when the storms stop for the year. Except that the castle was falling apart around us as we Gated out and the DHD is at the bottom of the ocean."

"Well, yeah, if you wanna look at it that way," Jack allowed. "But give Carter a chance. She figured out how to make our Gate work, she'll figure something out here."

Daniel just glared at Jack's optimism. "Why do you even care, Jack?"

_Because you do._ "You're obviously all worked up about it, have been ever since Ernest showed it to you." Jack put his hands behind his back. "You've been staring at that damn book for a week now. Maybe you ought to take a break."

"I don't want to take a break!" Daniel shouted. "I want to keep working while I remember everything, while Ernest and Catherine are still here and I can talk to him and-and-and ask him about what he remembers, what he saw."

"Don't you think you're getting a little obsessed with this? Ernest was there for fifty years and he couldn't crack it, you're not gettin' it done in a week!" Jack shouted back.

"But I can try! I have to try. Jack, one of those languages on the wall, they were runes. Norse runes, Thor's runes, like the Vikings. Like _Cimmeria_. If I can figure it out, any of it--"

Jack just sighed. The mention of Cimmeria was more than enough, and it wasn't like he hadn't thought of the Hammer and Skaara a hundred or two times. "Daniel, Daniel, stop." He circled the desk to turn the video monitor off, then closed Ernest's book. "You can't lay all of this on your own doorstep. You can't fix everything in the universe in one sitting."

"But I have to. We-we-we're the ones who destroyed Thor's Hammer, and that's the only hope we had of saving Skaara, of-of saving Sha're. And maybe, just maybe, I can figure it out, and prove to Thor or to his people that we are worthy of help. That Sha're and Skaara are worth saving."

"Aw, hell." Jack dragged Daniel into a one-armed hug. "It's not your fault, okay? It's not."

Daniel grasped Jack's shoulder like an anchor. "But it has to be. I can't live without her--"

"Except that you do. Didn't we just have this conversation on Abydos, just in reverse?" He could almost feel the physical weight of Daniel's misery. "You have to, or you're never going to find a way to save her. And you will save her."

Daniel's grip tightened, but he didn't answer. Turning back to the desk, he picked up Ernest's book and locked it carefully in his filing cabinet. He perched on the edge of the desk, feeling for his glasses and pushing them up his nose once they were on his face. "You said something about a break?"

The sudden change in attitude caught Jack by surprise, but he didn't say anything about it. "Yeah, I was thinking, food. Dinner. Chinese?"

A shrug was Daniel's reaction. "Sure, sounds fine. Let me grab my jacket and I'll be ready."

Jack caught Daniel's arm on his trek past. "Hey."

"I'm fine, Jack." He shrugged off Jack's touch. "It's just… hard. To let it all go. I had hoped so much for…"

"Yeah, I know." Another sigh, because there was nothing he could do to help Daniel. The burden wasn't one he could share. "C'mon, my treat." All he could do was watch, and make sure Daniel didn't implode. "Uncle Wong's has a three-for -twenty special this week, hope you're hungry."

The End


End file.
